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1908 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



POEM S 



POEMS 



BY 



CHARLES SPRAGUE SMITH 

AUTHOR OF "BARBIZON DAYS, "^"WORKING 
WITH THE people" 



NEW YORK 

A. WESSELS COMPANY 

1908 



Copyrighted 


igo8 


By a. Wessels Company 


August 






!1« 


LJBKARY of OONuRESS 
Uo eupies rteeei»t:« 

SEP 3 )y08 


T.|C O ^ 





Ci^ 



To 

MY MOTHER 
On her Eighty-first Birthday 



CONTENTS 

Page 

My Muse i 

COLLEGE DAYS 

The Orient Brook 5 

The Hills of Amherst 8 

Sunset from Mount Holyoke 14 

The Storm 17 

WANDERJAHRE 

The Sparrow 23 

Spirits of Light 24 

Pebbles 25 

Eventide 26 

Ambition 27 

The Silent Harp 28 

The Brook 29 

The Voice 30 

Lost Boyhood 31 

I Often Wonder 33 



viii CONTENTS 

Page 

Waiting 35 

The Dream 36 

Poesy 37 

The Elfin Boat 39 

"To Daisy" 41 

To Maggie 42 

A Centenary Poem 43 

Retrospect 48 

Unity 49 

The Three Voices 53 

Beside the Sea 58 

WITH THE PEOPLE 

Liberty 75 

Fraternity 76 

Marching Song 77 

America .0 79 

In the Bode Valley 81 



MY MUSE 

My muse, thou art a simple thing, 
Thy home is in the silent wood, 
Where brooklet's laugh or sparrow's wing 
Alone disturbs the solitude. 

Where others find but rock or tree 
And as the wind pass heedless by, 
In Nature's own simplicity, 
A new world opens to thine eye. 

Oh wondrous peace to lie and dream, 
In Nature's arms, the hours away. 
Oh sympathy, that doth not seem. 
But is, to-day as yesterday. 

Then happy thou, my sylvan muse, 
Though faltering thine earth-born wings. 
Her heart doth Nature ne'er refuse. 
The heart that beats in lowly things. 



COLLEGE DAYS 



THE ORIENT BROOK 



THE ORIENT BROOK 

When the sun was low, 
And a misty bow, 
In each quivering hue, 
Reflected the blue 

Of the sky, 
Or the wavering rose of clouds that winged fly, 
Betwixt the earth and the sky ; 
I sauntered along, 
Keeping time with the song 
Of the Orient brook, 
While the trees above 
Down upon me shook 
Their dewy gifts of love. 
To the winds their tresses were flung, 
In the very madness of joy ; 
When softer breezes sung. 
They arched their heads so coy, 
That I laughed as I wiped away 
The glistering pearls of spray. 
Joy was abroad, 
Sparkling in the drunken sod, 
Whispering in the woodland nook. 
Laughing in the bounding brook. 



POEMS 

Shouting in the gale, 

Nestling in the vale, 

On the hill, 

By the rill, 

In the misty wold. 

In the sunset gold, 

In the air, 

Everywhere. 

But the gloom returned; 

The fires that burned 

In the West 

Were quenched by the clouds of the east 

The proud behest 

Of the storm had not ceased 

To hold its sway, 

And a pall, as of night. 

Stole away the light 

From the gladsome face of day. 

How changed the scene. 

For lo ! 

Where waves of light ebb and flow 

In the misty bow. 

They have died away. 

Instead of a laughing sheen, 

A murky sea rolls between 

The sky and the day. 



THE ORIENT BROOK 

The trees droop their heads and moan, 

And now they tremble and quiver, 

Breathing a human groan, 

As the blazing river 

Bursts from the gloom and still, 

While thunder pulses from hill to hill. 

The joy of the brook is dead. 

Instead 
Of a carol, there comes a dirge, 
For the leaves 
That strew its verge, 
Unripened sheaves. 
Were shorn from the trees 
By the angry breeze. 
And my heart's merry roundelay 
In the dirge of the brook dies away. 



POEMS 



THE HILLS OF AMHERST 

Oh for the harp that erst in Tara's hall 
In music answered to the master's touch ! 
Oh for the voice that sang ^gean waves 
Wine colored, far resounding, wind disturbed ! 
That I might wake again the slumbering strings, 
That I, inspired, might sing in Hmpid verse 
Thy glories, Amherst, by the morning Hght, 
Or noontide glow, or when, at set of sun. 
To guard the peaceful vale and circling hills, 
Veiled night leads forth her new enkindled 
stars. 

Ye morning hills that at the eastern gate 
Unnumbered aeons hold your steadfast watch, 
Hygeia bristling o'er with bearded pines, 
Aquilo's loftier peak and rugged flanks; 
Ye modest hills that gently southward trend, 
With measured step descending to the vale; 
A tremor stirs your forests as the dawn 
Slow whitens and each tree chants orisons. 
Ye southern hills, green monsters of the plain ; 
In those far days, when time began its course, 
From your high seats you gazed upon a lake, 



THE HILLS OF AMHERST 9 

That trustingly lay in your strong embrace. 
Proudly you spake; •' These walls of adamant 
Have set their bounds to yonder cresting 

waves." 
A murmur stirred the bosom of the lake ; 
Exultingly she girt her armor on 
And hewed broad highway to the beckoning 

sea, 
And now, a rapid stream, just at your feet 
Flows tauntingly and bids you bind again 
With rocky manacles her glorious form. 
There Tom's bold crest assails the western 

sky. 
There Holyoke stands, home of the mountain 

bird, 
With beetling cliff and towering precipice, 
And fair Norwottuck in her robe of pines ; 
Gentler her slope and yet, ascending still. 
She stayed her feet nearer the trysting stars. 
Beside her stands a rude and nameless peak, 
For kindly nature throws no cloak about 
The rough hewn sides and bare forbidding 

crest 
Oft when the snows have robed in stainless 

white 
The peaceful valley and its guardian hills, 



10 POEMS 

I've thought how Horace sang: "Thou seest 

where 
With ice and snow Soracte standeth forth." 
And, eastward still, fronting the gates of morn, 
That hill upon whose crest a pool cloud-born 
Unruffled crystal holds to sun and stars. 
Ye far off hills that in the evening land 
On bended shoulders bear the western sky ; 
Ye hills that northward look, bold Sugarloaf, 
Beneath whose crest, the precipice inhewn, 
A hoary legend marks King Phillip's throne, 
Whereon in state he sat, while to its base, 
Along the river's bank or on its breast, 
In their birch-bark canoes, the nations came; 
And forest-hooded Toby, prone outstretched, 
By dank cave rent, hobgoblin's haunt of yore. 
Ye hills age-crowned that, in your stalwart 

youth, 
Aspiring etherward in rivalry, 
Yet, gazing backward at the virgin vale 
Soft nestling at your feet, forgot your aim 
And paused entranced, ere yet the fleecy 

clouds 
Had decked with coronals your princely brows ; 
Oft when the summer lured to idleness. 
Or, in the Autumn, when, its gossamer 



THE HILLS OF AMHERST ii 

The hoarfrost weaving 'neath the vaulted night, 
With magic touch unclasped the prickly burrs ; 
Or e'en when winter with its icy shroud 
Of purest snow had covered Nature's face ; 
I 've lingered on the hills of morning-land 
And watched the valley in its changefulness 
Until the sun had reached the western gate. 
As when, from Red Hill's brow, New Hamp- 
shire's lake 
Lies stretched before us with its myriad isles 
Now thickly clustered, now far separate ; 
So lies the valley with its clustering trees 
Of ever varying shades of sober green. 
Here smooth and level as that inland lake. 
Which, undisturbed by winds, sleeps peacefully 
Beneath the shelter of the circling hills, 
Their image mirrored in its upturned face. 
So on the landscape, lengthening shadows, fall 
The darkening outlines of the southern hills. 
But when the wind breathes softly on the lake 
It smiles in ripples and wave-forms appear ; 
So, in forgotten past, land-waves uprose 
Upon whose highest crest wise builders placed 
The college towers. As burnished mirrors glow 
Their white roofs kindled by the westering sun. 
In the far distance, like a silver thread 



12 POEMS 

Binding the northern to the southern slope, 
Flows fair Connecticut, just where the mead 
Slow 'gins to climb the west to overpeer 
The sunset land beyond the valley's bound, 
Here flanked by Warner, there, with mighty 

sweep, 
Encircling deep-soiled fields where Hadley sits 
By her broad streets and gray historic elms. 
Here at my feet lie, bosomed 'mong the trees. 
The country farmhouse, there the old white 

church. 
Or busy mill, for oft the mountain brook, 
That, up among the hills, leaps unconstrained 
From rock to rock like some wild mountain 

goat, 
Or wantons with the sedges on its banks, 
Or rests at times a shelving rock beside. 
While in its cold deep pool the fishes sport. 
There, bound by chains to turn the heavy 

wheel, 
With broken spirit moves, a sluggish stream. 

But while I linger on the eastern hills 
The golden gates a moment stand ajar. 
For, e'er he passed within, the king of day, 
A moment lingering, on the western sky 



THE HILLS OF AMHERST 13 

Mirrored the glory of the land beyond. 

The portals close, yet still the western clouds 

Are loath to lay aside their royal robes. 

And, as I gaze, it seems a crimson sea, 

With here and there those fair enchanted isles, 

Where happy spirits incorporeal dwell. 

Above the northern hills cloud mountains rise, 

In awful majesty white peak on peak. 

Bathed in the mystery of the after-glow. 

As when, at sunset hour, from Leman's shore, 

To ether's calm Mont Blanc uplifts its snows. 

The light has faded in the western skies, 
And night with silent step ascends her throne, 
In sable mantle clad, bestrewn with stars, 
Her wand outstretching, o'er the nestling vale 
Peace falls, as falls the snow when winds are 

stilled, 
And Amherst sleeps, the hills her sentinels. 



14 POEMS 



SUNSET FROM MOUNT HOLYOKE 

I STOOD upon the mountain's brow at even, 

When the sun had set 
And all the clouds that slept in the western 
heaven 

With the green hills met. 
The hills athwart those crimson cloud-banks cast 

Their somber lining, 
Before mine eyes grim shadows hurried past 

Round the hills twining. 
Far to the northward, linking shore with shore, 

The river, sleeping. 
Mirrored the delicate blush of clouds that before 

The sky were sweeping ; 
And, at my feet, down with its swift tide flowing, 

Seemed floating islands. 
For the clouds were rent apart where a wind 
came blowing, 

Fresh from the highlands ; 
And that long island, so like a school-boy's 
craft, 

With both ends pointed, 
Begirt by sunset clouds, all blithely laughed, 

With joy anointed. 



SUNSET FROM MOUNT HOLYOKE 15 

The leaves that robe the trees on its either side 

In the air quiver; 
But greener leaves are trembling in the tide, 

Bathed in the river. 
And where the river, once in living curves 

All proudly sweeping 
To clasp the meadow land, no longer swerves, 

The waters, sleeping, 
Send five long inlets from their stagnant breast 

Threading the lowland, 
And, as the pale light flickered in the west. 

It seemed a white hand 
Laid on the meadow's mingled brown and 
green ; 

Joy leaped in fountains ! 
Till from the shining path, where I had seen 

Day pass the mountains, 
The last faint pulse of light had died away. 

Those eyes of the night, 
The myriad stars that hide till parting day. 

Heralds of the light. 
That wakes in the moon's white face at eventide, 

Shot ether-cleaving. 
Winged arrows forth. The river's wounded 
side, 

Their darts receiving, 



i6 POEMS 

Quivered with glittering shafts ; then far above, 

With eyes upturning, 
I saw first where those fires, in all wise love, 

Are ever burning. 
Round me dark, dreary, pine-gloomed mountains 
rose, 

In shadows hooded. 
Save where the shimmering mists at night repose. 

Or, all unwooded. 
The moon poured free. From maze of misting 
trees, 

In the gloom and still. 
The weird, wild notes came pulsing, on the 
breeze. 

Of the whippoorwill. 
And, all night long, until the break of day, 

In my dreams blending, 
I heard those notes, from near, from far away, 

Their wood-call sending. 



THE STORM 17 



THE STORM 

T WAS night upon the waste of waters wide; 
Long since, companion of the weary day, 
Limning the western clouds with opal flame, 
Blood-red, the sun had sunk beneath the wave; 
And all was still — the winds had gone to rest ; 
The crested waves no longer swelled and surged, 
But laved with gentle touch a ship's proud sides 
While, from its height serene, the moon, full-orbed. 
Silvered the shoreless depths that slept beneath, 
Seeming to whisper everlasting peace. 
Oh ! wonder of that night, for, swinging free 
In hollow space, one saw the stellar host 
Move on its course till, ship and seas forgot, 
Earth bonds were loosed in comradeship of 

stars ! 
And naught disturbed the silence vast, profound, 
Save when a vagrant gull left mate and nest 
Lone on some isle to foot of man forbid, 
Soaring aloft as if to win the stars. 
And, on its pinions poising in mid air, 
— Afar discerned slow-wheeling sullen clouds 
In grim battalion surgent from the wave, — 
With shrilling cry, swift as an arrow turned. 



i8 POEMS 

But, in the brooding silence, that strange note, 
Falling through measureless spaces smote the ear 
With direful portent and with wonderment, 
For night still held the seas in slumber tranced. 

Uprose the waves, bursting the swathing bands 
That night had wound about them, and moved 

forth, 
Darting a thousand hissing tongues in air. 
Thrusting out eager arms to grasp the ship. 
Blackness of darkness fell, the howling wind 
Peopled the rigging with a world of shapes 
That moaned and murmured in discordant tones. 
As when some mighty organ throbs and swells 
As though a struggling soul were bound within, 
So throbbed the vast wild organ of the storm ; 
Deep diapasons of the surging sea 
Now rose, now died away to rise again. 
The whistling wind, responding to the strain, 
Combined to swell the awful symphony. 

The day is breaking, at the eastern gate 
The sun stands waiting, all his armor on, 
The while, about the portals of the morn, 
Dun-hooded clouds, in sullen, stern array. 
Their forces marshal to dispute his path. 



THE STORM 19 

But on he moves, the vanquished hosts withdraw, 
And rosy morn lights up the eastern skies 
Calming the angry spirit of the deep. 
The sea-bird soars aloft to greet its lord, 
Cleaving the air with wild, free notes of joy. 
A broken spar tossed by the troubled waves — 
A shroud of foam — a ship at silent port ! 



WANDERJAHRE 



THE SPARROW 



THE SPARROW 

Come little sparrow and sing me a cheering, 
Summer hath left us and wandered away, 
Didst thou not mark that the winter was nearing? 
Why in the cold of the Northland delay? 

*' Drear lieth earth in its snow-shroud about thee, 
Voiceless the elm tree, the maple forlorn. 
Nature were dumb and her heart dead without 

me, 
I must remain when my brothers are gone.*' 

True, little sparrow, a crumb for thy cheering. 
Deep in my heart thy message I take. 
E'en in the winter the springtime is nearing, 
Joy will not alway my hearth-stone forsake. 



24 POEMS 



SPIRITS OF LIGHT 

Whence come these vagrant measures, wayward 
things, 

Where have they birth? 
Not from within ourselves, their shining wings 

Have naught of earth. 

Spirits of Hght, from whencesoe'er ye come, 

Pass me not by. 
The heart shall answer though the lips be dumb, 

When ye draw nigh. 



PEBBLES 25 



PEBBLES 



Again a child beside a stream I wander 

In idle play, 
And watch the circles widening until yonder 

They melt away. 

The floating things above the ripple quiver 

My pebble made ; 
And yet the goings of the restless river 

Are never stayed. 

The deeds, the words at every step I 'm casting 

In other stream. 
Widens their circle, or, like ripple lasting, 

Sinks into dream? 



26 POEMS 



EVENTIDE 

Oh quiet eventide, Oh solemn hour, 

When Nature, bending, breathes her soul in 

prayer ; 
How sweet to feel that spell in all its power, 
Her hand to clasp, her God to worship there ! 
Whene'er overwearied with the dusty way, 
Yearning for sympathy, yet finding none, 
Hoping 'gainst hope through all the lagging day 
To earn forgetfulness when day is done, 
I lay my tired head on Nature's breast 
In quiet woods the murmuring brook beside. 
Ever I find companionship and rest 
And that deep yearning more than satisfied. 



AMBITION 27 



AMBITION 

What is it to be great ; is it to climb 
With eager tireless foot the highest peak, 
Or, with a child's unquestioning faith, to seek 
God's will and, patiently, abide his time? 

Be mine the lower thine the higher part, 
Honor in life, enduring fame thy lot, 
And mine, to live unknown, to die forgot, 
Each loyal to the dictates of his heart. 

Equal in loyalty, then equal meed 

For service rendered, whatsoe'er it be. 

Of humblest field-flower, proudest forest tree, 

Of all her rich womb bears hath Nature need. 

To every soul of man there comes a call 
For service that no other soul can do : 
Then labor on and to thy part be true. 
There is nor high nor low unto the All. 



28 POEMS 



THE SILENT HARP 

My harp is attuned to a song to-day, 
I watch and I wait for the song to come, 
Yet ever the eager strings are dumb. 
And the notes are dying, dying away. 

What can it be this yearning deep 
To sing of a something, I know not what. 
Some dream of the night perchance, forgot 
When morning came to rouse from sleep? 

I know what it is, I have learned it well. 
The ear may catch the minstrelsy 
The voice alas ! all powerless be 
The tale in the speech of man to tell. 



THE BROOK 29 



THE BROOK 

Oh tiny brooklet, ever seaward yearning, 
What instinct guides unerringly thy way? 
The strong-armed hills, the flower-starred mead- 
ows spurning, 
The tangled woodland lures thee not astray. 

And why, impatiently, thy wavelets urging? 
Thou knowest not the goal to which they hie, 
Full soon with other waves commingling, merg- 
ing. 
Thy life shall pass, thy very name shall die. 

'* What time the bosomed clouds of spring, low- 
bending, 
Rewoke to life my pulses chained and chill, 
The ocean called and I, obedience lending, 
Forsook the shelter of my natal hill. 

" My name forgetfulness awaiteth ever, 
No hand may pluck it from the hungry sea, 
Yet, from my waves, nor time nor tide can sever 
Myself that, nameless, shall immortal be." 



30 POEMS 



THE VOICE 

Wondering, questioning, o'er the deep blue 

sky, 
In spirit-bark I float. 

The spaces, star-strewn, yield me no reply, 
And yet at times I note, 
Amidst the silence of the circling spheres, 
A still majestic voice. 
The waiting Universe rejoicing hears 
And bids my soul rejoice. 



LOST BOYHOOD 31 



LOST BOYHOOD 

A LOITERER by babbling brook, 
The boy forgot his passing care ; 
All Nature seemed an open book 
And comradeship was everywhere. 

But years passed by till careless youth 
Changed into manhood's earnestness, 
Life's half-revealed, half-hidden truth 
Clothed rosy skies in sober dress. 

No more within the woods I find 
That old-time peace my spirit craves, 
Though Nature, like a mother kind, 
Still tenderly my temples laves. 

Since first I heard the surges wild 
Beating against the shores of time, 
In vain, to gentle notes, her child 
Would Nature bid attune his rhyme. 

I know that sound so deep and dread, 
Like voice of seas that ever near ; 
Of future years the mighty tread. 
The winds are bearing to my ear. 



32 POEMS 

Oh to be faithful to my call 
To hasten on the coming day, 
To strive, until the shadows fall, 
To clear the barriers away ! 

To share with men the power that fills 
My inmost heart with pulsings strong; 
To bid them hear the voice that thrills 
The strings of history along ! 

What matter if the eager feet 
Press not the portal of that day ; 
Though yearning eyes should never greet 
The goal of all the toilsome way? 

In vision I have often seen 
That sun in its full glory flame ; 
Then let me toil, though others reap 
In fields that shall forget my name. 



I OFTEN WONDER 33 



I OFTEN WONDER 

I OFTEN wonder if the hoarded power 

Or more or less by every patient year, 

If not on earth, shall elsewhere find its hour 

Of full unfolding, or if only here 

We may employ our powers and so must 

choose 
'Twixt this and that, a choice that haply leaves 
The richer half unfruiting. What to use 
And what to overstep ? The golden sheaves, 
His harvesting who yester evening passed, 
Allure me, for I dreamed within my breast. 
In youth, a kindred power, yet bonds lay fast 
About my life and thus, a seldom guest. 
Has Song my dwelling neared who with him 

stayed 
From dawn to middle night. When feet shall 

press 
The portal he has passed, the choice youth 

made 
Shall age bewail? No, if with singleness 
The higher will discerned I seek to do, 
Misspent I cannot be, and so I turn 
With joyance to the daily task anew. 
3 



34 



POEMS 



Perchance some morn shall break when all I 

yearn 
To do and be, a now divided field, 
Shall stretch, unbroken plain, before mine eye 
Bidding me come and till, and e'en earth yield 
One golden sheaf of immortality. 



WAITING 35 



WAITING 

How strange that thou and I 
Each other seeking, yearning to be found, 
Should see Spring, Summer, Winter pass us by, 
As the slow years turn round. 

I need thee as thou me. 

Full half our powers are wrapped about with 

sleep, 
And each must loose the other's chains ere we 
Our fields can till and reap. 

But though I hear thee not 
Hasting to meet me o'er the gladdening plain, 
Somewhere thou art, nor shall I be forgot 
When Summer comes again. 



36 POEMS 



THE DREAM 

To I. J. D. 

I DREAMED a dream in my childhood 

That faded, faded away, 
As the leaflet fades in the wildwood, 

So green at the dawn of May. 

The spell of winter is breaking, 
The trees are budding anew, 

And lo ! with the world's awaking. 
The dream 1 had dreamed came true. 



POESY 37 



POESY 



Once on a time, within the woods astray, 
I sat me down beside a singing brook, 
And lo ! the harp within, my harp, partook 
Its merry roundelay. 

And told, as ne'er before, how Nature's voice 
Speaks to the soul in accents tender, clear, 
As if the friend most loved of all were near 
To bid the heart rejoice. 

And yet how oft I 've lingered all day long 
Beside the brook and heard its measures swell 
And fall and eager lips were dumb to tell 
The changeful woodland song. 

As yestermorn I sat and pondered o'er 
The mystery of silence and of song, 
Lo! sudden murmur swept the chords along; 
Alas ! as oft of yore, 

'T was gone before I caught and held it fast, 
Constrained to yield its secrets to my pen, 
That I in turn might tell them o'er again. 
As flitting shadow cast 



38 POEMS 

By summer bird, that lightly beats the air, 
E'en so I hear and hear it not and yet 
The chords still quiver; ne'er can I forget 
A spirit lingered there ! 



THE ELFIN BOAT 39 



THE ELFIN BOAT 



In an idle boat, o'er an idle sea, 
Drifting away so dreamily, 
The winds they blow, the waves they go. 
And a tale is borne on the breeze to me. 



High up on his wing a wild bird soared, 
With a note all mad and free ; 
While her soft white light the full moon poured 
On the trembling floor of the sea. 

A boat stole out of the paling west, 
As the day's last hour was told ; 
It shone like a star on the ocean's breast 
And swept to the path of gold. 

Black grew the clouds, while a solemn sound 
Rose from the heart of the sea ; 
The helmsman's head the moonlight crowned 
And calm through the storm stood he. 

Over the waters the winged boat 
Flew as the wild birds fly ; 
Songs of the sea its tall mast wrote 
On the black and lowering sky. 



40 POEMS 

Foamed in their wrath the waters wild, 
Leaping to clutch their prey; 
The helmsman looked on the waves and smiled 
As he loosed the sheets away. 

Straight toward the east to the golden path, 
Straight toward the east steered he, 
Till the sky grew calm and the surges' wrath 
Was locked in the heart of the sea. 

And ever, as on the wild boat swept, 
Widened the path of gold — 
The helmsman knew that beyond there slept 
The land of the elfin wold. 



The waves they laugh and the waves they sigh 
And I look down into the sea. 
Nor wave nor sky will ever reply 
And the song is lost to me. 



"TO DAISY '» 41 



"TO DAISY" 
''Du BisT WiE EiNE Blume" 

To D. W. 

Daisy, just budding into womanhood, 
Unconscious, pure and simple as thy flower, 
Would I might find wherewith to weave a snood 
And crown thy temples at this morning hour. 

Most gentle, maidenly I picture thee, 
When to thy dwelling errant fancy hies, 
Half fearing, hoping half, of years to be 
I see the shadow lengthening in thy skies. 

Sweet Daisy, budding into life and hope. 
Mild be the sun and soft the summer air 
Beneath whose guard thy maiden petals ope ! 
West wind, this New Year's wish to Daisy 
bear. 



42 POEMS 



TO MAGGIE 

To M. W. 

To most of us, Maggie, this life is a riddle, 
Just like thy own tough ones insolvable quite, 
To thee 'tis a ballad, a hey diddle-diddle, 
I 'm half inclined, Maggie, to think thou art right. 

My glad-hearted Maggie, a merry good morning, 
The old year is going, the new one is near, 
Full blithe was the setting, yet blither the dawn- 
ing, 
Hail it then with a laugh and a song of good 
cheer. 

Ah Maggie, my Maggie, that blithe heart go 

with thee. 
Flow shoreward or seaward life's joy-laden tide, 
And happy thyself, render happier, prithee, 
The gloomy-phizzed grumblers who walk by 

thy side. 



A CENTENARY POEM 43 

A CENTENARY POEM 

Read at the gathering of the A^iericans in Berlin, 
July 4th, 1876 

In quiet woods, by softly lisping rills, 

In voice of wind and song of forest bird, 

On night-robed mountains, on the noonday hills, 

Full many a note from Nature's choir I heard, 

Yet all in vain had sought a master spell 

To touch the hearts of men and fire my song, 

Till, as the evening o'er the Wartburg fell, 

My harpstrings dead swept spirit hands along. 

Before me lies a valley, fair as morn, 

Now undulating gently into hills. 

Now verdant fields far stretching toward the 

dawn. 
With solemn mountains and with laughing rills. 
A tower of hoary strength, the Wartburg stands, 
With garlands hung that freshen with the years, 
By conquerors twined, by gentlest poets' hands, 
And moistened with religion's purest tears. 
Upon the evening hills a glory lies, 
A crimson mist enfolds the western way, 
The dim reflection of those other skies, 
That lie beyond the portals of our day. 



44 POEMS 

The silence deepens on the wooded height, 
The shadows lengthen o'er the misty vale, 
The birds* song hushed, the breezes' footfall light, 
The forest-murmur stilled, the night-wind's wail. 

Then terror seizes me that knows no name, 
From fading clouds of east lo ! sudden flame 
Upleaps the sky, and, through the hollow round, 
Deep, heavy pulses, wave on wave of sound, 
As though imprisoned sea had burst her chain. 
And hoarse-voiced waves led in her ancient reign. 
Against those shining clouds, a shadowy form 
Dark, grand, grim, terrible, as coming storm ! 
From glowing east far toward the paling day 
A somber march unswerving holds its way, 
On moving stately, solemn, sullen, slow; 
That ghostly tread the trembling mountains know. 
Now sweeps the plains beneath, resistless tide, 
A countless host, as death had opened wide 
Her brazen doors. 

In winged answer came 
To words no mortal lips had power to frame ; 
" The forms thou seest are the ages gone. 
Their finished work they bring to those just born ; 
From east to west unswerving lies their way. 
From lands of morn to lands of fading day. 



A CENTENARY POEM 45 

The hope of coming ages rests on thee, 
America, fair home of liberty." 
" Oh give," I trembling cry, *' unfailing sign. 
Will she prove true to trust so dread, divine?" 
" If thou would'st learn the secret of the skies." 
*' Gaze toward the paling west," that voice replies. 

The spirit-shadow fades to mountain gray. 
I Ve been but dreaming with the passing day, 
Yet still, so real those marching nations seem, 
Seen and heard only in an hour's dream. 
My eyes turn longing toward the western sky 
And lo ! through rifted clouds, fair mountains lie, 
Transparent, silver, flooded with a light 
Earth knoweth not — then fall the shades of night. 

Our daily life 's the dusty way 

With narrow stretch of cloudland gray. 

Our dreams are hills from whence we see 

The far away futurity. 

And so, within my dream, their lies 

The secret hid in future skies. 

Oh thought too grand for human speech ! 
Oh mystery no mind can reach ! 
That we, Americans, should be 
The instruments of Deity, 



46 POEMS 

In perfecting the ages' plan, 
Building the brotherhood of man : 
That God on our weak shoulders lays 
The hope of all the coming days. 
With trust goes duty hand in hand, 
What may not such a trust demand? 
If faithful found, those clouds shall fly 
That now hang lowering in our sky, 
And garlands of unfading fame 
Crown every lowliest hero's name. 
But, if our faithlessness betrays 
The dawning hope of future days ; 
If patriot's cheek, his country's name 
E'er mantle with a blush of shame ; 
If freedom's home should ever be 
A synonym for perfidy ; 
Then ermined robe of liberty 
But covers chains of slavery. 
That trust to others shall be lent, 
And, in just wrath, the firmament 
Upon our heads shall curses rain. 
For us the centuries toiled in vain. 

Oh shrink not then, if called to part 
With all that's dearest to thine heart; 
The noblest work in heaven's eyes 
Is self's completest sacrifice. 



A CENTENARY POEM 47 

Not he who nerved by battle cry 
For God and country dares to die 
Hath earned the highest meed, but he 
Whose Hfe is merged in Hberty. 
So live, and when another age 
Hath turned another century's page, 
No thought of cloud shall fleck our sky, 
No shade o'er our broad empire lie. 
What matter then, if thy name be 
Forgotten by posterity? 
Forgetting self, thy land to free. 
Thou buildest for eternity. 



48 POEMS 



RETROSPECT 

I CANNOT sing as I used to sing 
In the far away morning time, 
When every zephyr bore on its wing 
Its burden of rippling rhyme. 

A careless child I lived and I laughed 

With the birds and the brooks and the breeze, 

And the song-brimmed cup of the sunlight 

quaffed, 
Nor ever tasted the lees. 

And yet I would not have missed the days 
That stretch 'twixt the now and then, 
If a deeper note shall attune my lays 
That may speak to the hearts of men. 



UNITY 49 



UNITY 



By many paths man seeks for God, 
And can it be, in error's maze 
All wander save the few whose ways 
Are those our sainted fathers trod? 

Lo, deep within its bosky glen, 
Bending in coy humility, 
The faintly flushed anemone 
Would fain, I ween, be hid again. 

The ruddy rose, the garden's pride. 
Unveils her beauty to the sun. 
Exulting in the life new won. 
Casting her chrysalis aside. 

The cereus in wondrous way, 
Uplifts her chalice pearly white. 
For, in the mystery of night, 
Wakens the force received by day. 

In varying forms, the life within. 
Bursting the bonds of winter's night, 
To leaf and flower transmutes the light. 
When the moist April days begin. 
4 



50 POEMS 

So human souls will ever climb 
By separate paths the bristling peak, 
When yearning hearts with patience seek 
To find eternity in time. 

The pious worshipper whose sight 
Follows with awe the holy flame, 
Ascending upward whence it came, 
Gropes blindly toward the source of light. 

Gautama's hand in Eastern skies 
Hath set a constant beaming star. 
And he who sees its light afar 
Discovers where his pathway lies. 

The highest truth, with varying light, 
Shineth for all their steps to guide, 
And 'tis a child's unreasoning pride 
To think our path alone is right. 

No ! ours is not the golden stair, 
God-wrought for erring human kind, 
But whosoever will shall find 
His pathway beckoning everywhere. 

And every upward striving wakes 
Within the heart responsive chord, 
For every soul that seeks its Lord 
The common brotherhood partakes. 



UNITY 

All-father never turns aside 
Refusing sympathy to him 
Who, groping in the twilight dim, 
Yearns for a hand his steps to guide. 

Go watch the birds, in rhythmic flight, 
The eagle spurns the baser air. 
Cleaving with swift and winged share 
A royal pathway toward the light. 

The robin's wing will never beat 
Those waves of blue that highest rise, 
But, weary from the lower skies, 
She seeks on earth to rest her feet. 

The skylark's carol, blithe and free, 
Falls from the blue and strange afar, 
Like music from a wandering star, 
Or seraph's morning minstrelsy. 

The horned owl must sit and doze 
On mossy bough the livelong day; 
He hath not learned the forest lay. 
The night alone his goings knows. 

Yet all the myriad forms that plough 
With winged keel the sea of air, 
Singing or dumb, in plumage fair 
Or sober coat, are kin, I trow. 



Si POEMS 

Ye patient feet, that strive to win, 
Step after step, the bristHng height, 
Ye eyes that crave the perfect Hght, 
One goal is yours and ye are kin. 

Dear primal light, or dimly seen 
Through shades of doubt that darksome 

lower. 
Or sweeping with majestic power 
All clouds away before thy sheen, 

Send unto each and all who seek 
Thy will, thy face, a guiding ray, 
And lead us upward all the way 
Until we gain the highest peak. 



THE THREE VOICES 53 



THE THREE VOICES 

Dreamer 

What ecstasy, all fetters cast aside, 
That bind the soul, the free-born, down to earth. 
To soar above the clouds and feel the tide 
Of god-life quickening every power to birth. 
A moment lived in higher, purer air 
Effaces memories of prison years. 
And makes us strong a brother's toil to share. 
To our re-opening eyes, still holding other skies. 
Fresh from the hand of God, new born, our gray 
old world appears ! 

Earth Voice 

When fields are burdened with the yellow grain, 
Low bending to the harvest, and the earth 
Asks of the reaper that the winds again 
Blow free above it, that, instead of dearth. 
It drink through thousand mouths from air and 

sun 
Full life renewal, shall he answer naught, 
Because, forsooth, the half-day's labor done, 
His fellow toilers and his fields forgot, 



54 POEMS 

The husbandman has sought release from 

care, 
Following the feu-follet of phantasy 
Through some imagined region of the air? 
The while, with vacant eyes, he scans the empty 

skies, 
Wind-harvested along the fields, his withered 

grainstalks lie. 

Dreamer 

Is there no time for singing? 
Must we forever toil ? 
May we not, skyward winging, 
Flee from the earth's turmoil? 
Only a moment resting 
Where the ideal reigns. 
Only an hour divesting 
Life of its galling chains? 

Earth Voice 

No path of dreams I tread ; 

The age demands of all a wakeful eye, 

A tireless hand; through work alone is 

read 
Of self and all that is, the mystery. 



THE THREE VOICES 55 

Dreamer 

But, in those depths of infinite blue, 
My eyes have seen another world, 
And, when my spirit bark anew 
Seeks purer air, with sails unfurled, 
Of all its heavy burthen of care. 
The ship of my soul is unladen there. 

Earth Voice 

Dream-worlds allure no longer ; on the earth. 
Not in some barren region of the air, 
Man is to win his free and full new birth, 
O'ermastering fate through toil, Hfe's sceptre 
wear. 

No place henceforth for vain Imaginings 
That weaken will, place only for the call 
To duty, poet only he who sings 
The dawn and with his song enkindles all. 

Cloud Voice 

Dreamer, I heard thy measures sweet and low. 
And, son of earth, thy accents strong and proud. 
Now, while I speak from out the drifting cloud, 
List to my words and learn what ye would know. 



56 POEMS 

In days of eld, with note of rustic pipe, 
The poet lulled the weary soul to sleep, 
Luring to rest where woodlands silence keep, 
Or where the brook goes singing thro' the mead. 

That age is past, the air is rife with change. 
Who has not heard the voice, that in the ear 
Proclaims : ** Another higher morn is near ! " 
And bids each do all in his spirit's range ? 

But, son of earth, how wilt thou shape and form 
The things that are to be from things that are? 
If eye but see the real, the hand will mar 
The block it seeks to fill with pulsings warm. 

Upward the mind must soar till it surprise 
Beauty and truth where they eternal dwell. 
Art is toil's sister, she can loose the spell 
That veils the changeless world from mortal eyes 

Lo ! this the poet's part and he has won 
The laurel, if to way-worn human Hves 
His song has brought the message that revives 
Faith, courage, strength to toil till day is done, 

Interpreting eternal harmonies 
No discords of a changeful world can mar. 
Disclosing that forever sun and star 
Shine in the deep blue of unclouded skies. 



THE THREE VOICES 57 

But, dreamer, when thy h'ghtened bark again 
From that fair haven by the azure sea, 
Freighted with song for worn humanity, 
Spreads her white wings and seeks the lower 
main, 

Remember thou hast seen what few may see, 
And double share of mortal work is thine. 
To sing and toil, nor may the chaplet twine 
An idler's brow. In years that are to be, 

Companion with me in the blue afar, 
Thy lips shall learn a nobler minstrelsy, 
Bearing the message of the Deity 
In higher ministry from star to star. 



S8 POEMS 



BESIDE THE SEA 

First Voice 

Again I Ve fled the city's stifling air, 

The loathsome sight and touch of chattering men 

And, to this cliff lone beethng o'er the main, 

Have upward toiled, to seek relief, to share 

With the vast sea the burthen of my thought. 

Here only can I soothe my tortured heart, 

Forgetting even that I am but part 

Of the vile herd, I too a thing of naught. 

In jagged cliff and shoreless ocean's crash, 

Immerged, I seem, incorporate to be, 

While muffled roar comes through the night to me 

And, at my feet, the surges seething dash. 

Delusion of delusions, vanity ! 

Yon puny things that, from this eyrie, seem 

But creeping vermin, verily they deem 

Themselves of nobler mould than earth or sea ! 



Second Voice 

Yea, they but seem black specks against the sand, 
Atoms beside the proud infinitude 



BESIDE THE SEA 59 

Of seas that know not bounds, of forces rude, 
Unkenned by mortal brain, uncurbed by hand, 
That ceaseless course the arteries of earth, 
Bearing to every part its portion meet 
Of primal energy, with every beat 
Of Nature's heart. Yet, first at human birth. 
As, when the spring quickens the dormant year, 
The rose from kernel breaks, from brute a soul 
'Gan to emerge, aspiring toward its goal. 
Sceptered through mind, man thrones without a 

peer, 
Earth-life a tent that morn shall fold away, 
Leaving the spirit free to run its course ; 
Or turning Godward to its primal source, 
Or starward to the light of nobler day. 

First Voice 

How hard it is with reason's knife to cut 
From out the mind the canker rooted there 
In childhood's hour; a mother's tender care 
Fostered its growth, perceived its venom not. 
I know my soul, whatever name it bear. 
Or mind or brain, that force doth animate 
You call material ; Hellenic fate, 
Semitic God, are only common air. 



6o POEMS 

They are but croonings of a toothless jade 

Those voices canting force ethereal, 

There is no force but the material, 

No after-bloom when petals droop and fade. 

Behold the silly fly, that struts about 

The orbit of my thumb, with equal pride, 

I ween, to man's, as equal, justified. 

Infinity the standard ; yet men flout 

The vastness with their utter nothingness ! 

What is the earth, your empire, but a grain, 

A shard, a pebble, tossed by restless main. 

Whose waves through all eternity compress 

In rhombs and spheres the jagged fragments torn 

From some primordial crag? Thou canst not 

rest, 
Poor whirling pebble, for the high behest 
Thou must obey of waves whose beat hath worn 
Thy roughness into symmetry. The earth. 
However vast, immutable it seem, 
Compared with man, it too shall as a dream 
Dissolve and vanish, haply other birth 
Finding in chaos, of all life the womb. 
Haply to farthest space in fragments hurled. 
Ages have come and gone, races have furled 
Their flaunting pennons, whelmed within the 

tomb 



BESIDE THE SEA 6l 

Of sinking mountain and of rising sea, 
Leaving behind no faintest trace to tell 
The tale of all they wrought ; the silence fell 
Engulfing them for all eternity. 
Orb of a day, whose feeble borrowed light 
Within the wave shall soon extinguished be, 
If thou art shadowy, what alas ! are we? 
Atoms forgotten in the Infinite ! 

Second Voice 

Atoms indeed, but softly blows the wind, 
The atom bearing through uncharted space, 
And, as it breathes, I hear a voice and trace 
Its steadfast march guided by higher mind. 
Not yet can morn the pallid night dispel. 
The east holds back its pageant, to the hills 
Cold mists still chng, the fog that slow distils 
From the dank plain where wrong and error dwell. 
And yet, as when the night her myriad eyes 
Closes, while splendent climbs the eastern way 
The morning star, we know the lord of day 
Full soon shall move effulgent through the skies ; 
So, age on age, in darkening firmament 
Of human history, one star shone forth, 
A Socrates, the Christ. The inner worth 
Of manhood these reveal, forerunners sent, 



62 POEMS 

Star-heralds of the dawn. The arc begun 

At human birth shall sweep its circle full ; 

Master of Nature, man shall learn self-rule 

And follow on until the goal be won. 

Though, aeon upon aeon desolate, 

The earth awaited, yea, and should it be 

A sage's eyes have read the mystery 

That shrouded life and, through a vanished gate, 

Humanity toiled upward, stage on stage ; 

Whatever may have been the plan divine. 

Thou canst not fathom it with sounding line. 

Sinking through past to past, from age to age, 

Until thou recognize that man doth wear 

Upon his brow a mystic circlet placed 

By higher hand. There were no emptier waste 

Than earth, were man but clay and vital air. 

First Voice 

How human fancy errs ! Whene'er I keep 
My vigil neath the starry canopy. 
Over my senses steals mysteriously 
The influence of the hour. The changeful deep 
Seemeth at times to speak, yet well I ween 
'T is all a dream ; 't is but the fevered brain 
Tricking the senses with its phantoms vain, 
Making unseen, unheard both heard and seen. 



BESIDE THE SEA 63 

Yet Nature is a book that man may read ; 

But reason's lamp must light the deep-graved 

page, 
Not fancy's will o' wisp, if thou wouldst wage 
The holy war for truth. The age doth need 
Men who are true to their own selves, nor feign 
To see the skeleton of perished faith 
Still clothed in flesh and blood, and whom the 

wraith 
Of hope or fear can ne'er unman again. 
Such men have turned the pages and they read 
To blind humanity the mysteries, 
Showing religions all but empty lies 
And vulgar superstition every creed. 
And, ere the moon begins her nightly march, 
Pouring along the quivering ocean floor 
Her mystic light, come, and with me explore 
The pages written where yon tenuous arch 
Silvers the heavens. We call it milky way. 
Our sires beheld the stars, full-uddered kine, 
Bedewing as they moved the path divine, 
Late homing to the milking. Yesterday 
We held as truth, such child-imaginings; 
As true they are as every myth that man 
Hath woven since the patient earth began 
About the sun to wheel on tireless wings. 



64 POEMS 

Yon tiniest starry point that comes and 

goes, 
Like mote of vagrant dust in noonday beam, 
It is a sun and fuller far the stream 
Of living light that from its fountain flows. 
Than from the orb man worshipped. Couldst 

thou stand 
As Odin erst on Lidskalf's trembling tower, 
O'erlooking all the worlds, the clouds that 

lower, 
Each other urging o'er the April land, 
A nothing were beside the nebulae. 
Those clouds of countless suns, star-dust of 

space. 
If such the milky way, what mind can trace 
The emptiness of human vanity? 
As tender children, shrinking from the dark, 
Tell each the other thousand idle tales ; 
Facing oblivion, human courage fails 
And feigns within the clay immortal spark. 

Second Voice 

Turn not away, thou hast but read a verse 
Of all the hymn, whose shining alphabet 
'Wilders thy vision. Scan the pages, let 
The myriad stars their wanderings rehearse, 



BESIDE THE SEA 6$ 

Till thou discern, in all the mystery 
Of suns without a number or a name, 
A guiding hand, a plan divine, the same 
For clouds of suns, for weak humanity. 
The sea is whitened with a thousand sail ; 
Unnumbered keels, with seething steps of foam, 
O'erstride the plain of azure, blithely roam 
From clime to clime, but, tell me, what avail 
Were ocean's highway broad and unconfined, 
Were keel or sail, without the hand of man 
To guide the rudder, or that higher plan, 
That o'er the deep hath placed the moving wind? 
They too are barks, those mighty orbs that 

plough 
Limitless aether; at each helm presides 
That law which, steadfast to their courses, 

guides 
Earth and her sister planets. Thinkest thou 
Law self-created, or, as spark from source, 
An emanation from intelligence? 
If shard of flint discloses where rude tents 
Rude man set up, the mind, a new world-force; 
What hymns the cosmos from the worm to sun? 
Like getteth like, from mind the cosmos came, 
And, cosmic mind, it has no other name 
Than God, omniscient, omnipresent, one. 
5 



66 POEMS 

First Voice 

As if there were a God ! In very deed, 

" Go place a bandage o'er thine eyes and 

then 
Forthwith thou shalt become a guide of men." 
Thus speaketh, and hath spoken every creed, 
In days of eld when child-man vainly strove 
To lift the veil that covered Nature's face, 
Imagination might her features trace 
And hold mind prisoned in the web it wove ; 
But loosed for aye is superstition's chain, 
They, who have dared to question, these 

beheld 
The myths of Jew and Gentile all dispelled, 
Where science lights her torch, faith's tapers 

wane. 
You say there is a God, the changeless law. 
That rules alike the worm, the wheeling sun. 
Came from a higher source. That mighty 

one. 
That law personified, in trembling awe, 
On bended knee, you worship, and I wait 
To hear him speak as, through the aisles of 

air. 
Skyward ascends your softly murmured prayer. 



BESIDE THE SEA 67 

But all is still, the temple, desolate, 
Proclaims your God as dumb as image formed 
With rudest handicraft. Your dreams are vain. 
The idols forged and fashioned in the brain 
Are idols still with fleshly passions warmed. 
The name of God, what is it but a veil 
Of flimsiest tissue, hung by human pride 
O'er th' unexplored, and nescience deified? 
The morning breaks and lo ! with skulking 

sail, 
The phantom gods, unmasked, forever flee, 
While, o'er the yet unfathomed mystery. 
Fair science spreads her wings. In years to 

be, 
Law shall alone be hailed as deity. 

Second Voice 

There is a God, beneath the finite lies, 
Beyond the seen, the unseen, infinite. 
Go climb the Himalaya, whence the sight 
May take its boldest sweep, the piercing eyes 
Declare, as plainly, other regions lie 
Beyond horizon's verge, as valleys rest 
Beneath the mountains' guard. Thou hast 

confessed 
Unwittingly the God thou wouldst deny. 



68 POEMS 

With soul whose hunger earth can never still, 
Fain wouldst thou pass the outmost bounds of 

space 
That, haply somewhere, wistful eye may trace 
The cause of causes and the moving will. 
But every child of man that seeks to live, 
With loyal heart, in self-forgetfulness. 
On higher law intent, though consciousness 
Of God be absent, even though man give 
To Him material form, or any name 
Humanity hath named beneath the sun, 
He doth confess the omnipresent one; 
Yea, even though he will it not, the same. 
And all God's children are ; alike He hears 
The ignorant worshipper of stock or stone. 
The sage who, deep within his heart, hath 

known 
The truth and bears a light to after years. 
But lo ! the tardy moon uplifts her face 
Above the eastern hills and kindly pours 
Her calm about us. Fain, of distant shores, 
Her lips would speak, the cradle of our race. 
The weary path the Indian peoples trod 
Is bristling all with endless questionings. 
As, step by step, from low material things. 
They followed on to find the unknown God. 



Reside the sea 69 

No eye of man profanes the mystery 

Behind the clouds, that veil the mountain's head. 

Is there a world beyond? re-Hve the dead? 

The mountain knoweth it, 't is Deity. 

Who saw the source from whence the waters 

came? 
And who can chain the river's restless flow? 
Perchance those still mysterious depths below 
Conceal the power we seek but cannot name. 
But lo ! the sun doth lift the shimmering veil, 
The mountain stands revealed a thing of earth. 
The wanderer finds the spring where hath its birth 
The restless river — and their glories pale. 
What foot may measure in the shifting sand 
The limits of the desert, limitless? 
What keel may o'er the azure pathway press 
Until it find the sea-confining land? 
Dwells here the God? — The morn, on eastern 

shores. 
In voiceless breakers beating, floods the sky, 
And, in the evening, ere the shadows fly, 
A wondrous tide its crested billows pours 
Of rainbow hues athwart the western wall. 
A sea of fire enfolds us, thence the sun 
At morn emerges, and, when day is done. 
There re-descends. Is he the Lord of all? 



70 POEMS 

Is fire God? In deepest solitude, 
At midday hour, when scarce the air is stirred 
By sound of living thing, a crimson bird 
Is born and waxes strong within the wood. 
We hear the crackling knell of hoary trees, 
Beneath whose boughs it had its mystic birth. 
But when their ashes strew the parched earth, 
It vanishes as trackless as the breeze. 
Who sends the rain, that, o'er the thirsty lea, 
Outpours new life in gentle summer shower, 
But whose resistless, all-devouring power 
More dreaded is than fire or shoreless sea? 
Who rides upon the rumbling car of death? 
Whose sword of flame divides the firmament? 
Beneath whose feet, in awful chorus blent. 
Do mountains groan, and whose the sulphurous 

breath? 
Thus ages passed and, still unsatisfied. 
They groped until they found the seeming 

Lord 
Of all the manifold, the heaven-God, 
The sky enfolding all with mantle wide. 
The Vedic seer has reached the outmost bound 
Of things material and now, his eye, 
The holy depths, the still unfathomed sky 
Begins with reason's plummet line to sound. 



BESIDE THE SEA 71 

What though he learned his gods an empty 

name. 
And questioned even, if a God there be; 
He wearied not, probing the mystery 
Until he found the soul from whence all came. 
That tireless searching for the infinite, 
With childlike faith, that wistful eye shall 

trace, 
Behind the work, the Worker, see God's face, 
Is it but dream dispelled by dawning light? 
Not all a dream. As tender children go. 
Trustingly leaning on a father's hand. 
Child ages followed prophet's, priest's command, 
Beheving these God's messengers below. 
The age of childhood ends, — the human mind 
Suffices to itself to find the way. 
The scholar is the seer of to-day. 
Free men we walk and, eyes uplifting, find 
The universe a cosmos, and the strife. 
Of jarring castes and creeds, to harmony 
Turning, as mind unveils the mystery. 
Uncovering the unity of hfe. 
Religions many, but Religion one ! 
An ordered universe, where each hath place. 
And, filling it, the Orderer's hand can trace — 
Lo ! this the goal attained. To-morrow's sun 



72 POEMS 

Shall light a swifter course, as hand in hand, 
The nations climb together, ordering law, 
That, veiled in clouds alone, the fathers saw. 
Shines steadfast beacon, lights remotest strand. 
And, though the hand iconoclast efface 
The names the ages gave the Infinite, 
God is, for law is. They who seek aright, 
Doing His will, shall sometime see His face. 



WITH THE PEOPLE 



LIBERTY 75 



LIBERTY 



Liberty, dream of the ages of ages, 
Pole-star directing humanity's way, 
Riddle, half-read by the poets and sages, 
When shall thy morrow become our to-day? 

When, the world over, each with the other 
Equal shall share and as equal endure, 
None for his bread be a slave to his brother, 
None covet wealth while his neighbor is poor. 

Lo ! in the East a new splendor appearing, 
Nature with myriad tongues bursts into song 
Courage, my brothers, that morrow is nearing, 
Liberty's morning awaited so long ! 



^^ POEMS 

FRATERNITY 

Behind to-morrow's veil concealed, 
A higher social order waits, 
Where ancient wrong its throne shall yield 
And justice rule obedient states; 
Where, bound in steadfast brotherhood, 
The nations of the world shall stand, 
Their common aim the common good, 
And love the universal band. 

Sure as to-morrow's sun shall rise, 
That higher social day will dawn, 
And they, who seek as highest prize 
The common welfare, speed that morn. 
Then, brothers, help each brother man 
To freer, happier, nobler life 
And so fulfil the ages' plan 
And end forever sordid strife. 

Unbind the hand, unloose the feet 
And make thy brother free indeed. 
Free the awakening morn to greet 
Unfettered by to-morrow's need. 
Free to unfold, as flower and tree, 
The life within and fully live 
For all, in all, till earth shall be 
True heaven and fullest fruitage give. 



MARCHING SONG 77 



MARCHING SONG 

Hark, hark the peal of clarions calling, 
A host unnumbered marching by, 
O'er serried ranks the pennons falling, 
The hills give back the battle-cry. 
Whence come ye hero-warriors hither? 
What lands, what ages gave ye birth? 
What crave ye still of bleeding earth ? 
What laurel-wreaths that shall not wither? 

To arms the clarions call. 

To deeds the doing worth, 

March on, march on, till freedom dawn 

And justice rule the earth. 

" We are the myriads, named and nameless. 
From every land and every clime, 
Who, in the fight for freedom, blameless. 
Found immortality in time. 
One struggle more, supreme endeavor, 
Then peace not war shall rule the earth 
For brotherhood shall come to birth, 
And every chain be loosed forever." 



78 POEMS 

Again the clarions call, 

" Ho, all that live, awake ! " 

March on, march on, till justice dawn, 

Till freedom's morning break. 

Glory to God, the day is breaking, 

The long awaited golden morn, 

The heroes dead who, self-forsaking, 

Gave all to hasten freedom's dawn, 

As brothers, comrades, march beside us. 

On then to conquest of the world, 

On, till our battle flags are furled 

In freedom's peace, and God shall guide us. 

Ye mountains clap your hands ! 

Exult oh sky and sea ! 

March on, march on, breaks o'er all lands 

The dawn of liberty ! 



AMERICA 79 



AMERICA 



America, heir of the ages, 
In the heart of the sea hid away, 
While history traced on her pages 
Of nations the birth and decay, 
Oh, virgin of kings and their minions, 
Of shackles that Europe must wear, 
Thy symbol the eagle whose pinions, 
Hold subject the realms of the air; 

How free and how peerless thy station ! 
Thy ramparts the limitless sea ! 
Oh land, from the morn of creation. 
Selected earth's leader to be, 
What fashion of man art thou rearing. 
On thy soil by no tyrant e'er trod ? 
As kings should thy sons be unfearing, 
Their homage paid only to God. 

" Oh fuller my bosom of sorrow, 
Than of waters the fathomless sea. 
And ever I wait for that morrow, 
When all of my sons shall be free. 



8o POEMS 

For brother contends with his brother 
In ruthless and ravening greed, 
And lust has slain love of each other, 
For gold is the god of their creed. 

" But hark in the distance a moaning, 
As of seas at the full rolling in ; 
For winters unending atoning, 
Earth's springtime at last shall begin. 
My sons, from their blindness awaking, 
Have brotherhood's banner unfurled. 
Lo ! the chains of the nations are breaking, 
' God rules,' is the song of the world." 



IN THE BODE VALLEY gi 

IN THE BODE VALLEY 

To I. D. S. S. 
(August, 1907) 

Brawling brook beneath my window, 

Back in thought I wander with you 

To the snows where you were nurtured. 

All about you stood the mountains, 

Granite walls as iron steadfast ; 

Yet, through aeon upon aeon, 

You have measured strength and mastered. 

Precipice to clouds uplifted, 

Riven crag that beetles o'er you, 

Crumbling slope that trees are mantling — 

These are way-marks of your conquest. 

Yonder hes a deep-soiled valley, 

Green with wheat to harvest ripening. 

You have wrought it from the ruin 

Of the hoary valley monarchs. 

Stream of folk-life, slow emerging 
From the brute, within the forest, 
Mountains rose across your pathway, 
Barriers by caste erected. 
Through the ages, with the many, 
Stable only as the water, 



82 POEMS 

You have wrought and lo ! the mountains 
Levelled and your pathway open 
To the fields by you created. 

Ceaseless moves the hurrying brooklet, 
Ceaseless moves the folk-stream onward. 
Naught shall stay them, naught delay them. 
Till their task is all accomplished ; 
Till, within the mountain fastness, 
Flows the brook at valley's level ; 
Till the last strong hold of power 
Yields and man as man is master. 



Sit 3 IS*08 



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